The Godmothers
by Moe Machina
Summary: A newborn girl is blessed and cursed by three brothers and one indifferent witch.


**THE GODMOTHERS**

**1.**

The girl's hair smelled like smoke. She sat in front of him and clung to the hard pommel of his saddle. Over her head, Zalbag could see each bone standing out in her pale knuckles, and for the first time, it occurred to him that she might be afraid.

Someone called his name, and Zalbag shifted his knees. His obedient chocobo slowed to a trot and, behind him, he heard the sounds of his equally obedient company reining in their mounts. Despite the smoke, despite the girl, Zalbag smiled.

"Well?" said the man riding up beside him. "Do we press on to Cousin Frederick's estate? Or back to Gariland?" Their chocobos trotted sedately side-by-side.

"Neither, brother," Zalbag said slowly. "We go to Aunt Rosalynne, I think."

"Rosalynne?" Dycedarg's sleepy eyes widened in surprise. "She is not on our route. Why go there?"

"Because she is nearest," Zalbag said. "We must find lodgings for our wounded. We must make arrangements for this one." He indicated the girl sitting hunched and silent in front of him.

Dycedarg looked at the girl as if he had never seen her before. "Her? Good Lord. What arrangements?"

"Whatever arrangements are necessary," Zalbag said, turning his head away. He pressed his knees slightly against his chocobo, and the beast obediently broke into a faster pace. Behind him, he heard the sound of feathers and taloned feet, and he knew that his company of cadets had wordlessly urged their own chocobos to match his pace. For a moment, he felt a deep, childish pleasure in their responsiveness, in their loyalty. But such a feeling was Vanity, and Zalbag brutally beat the feeling down as soon as he felt it.

"No doubt," Dycedarg was saying. He stroked his beard with one pensive hand and held his chocobo reins in the other. "Arrangements, naturally, of course. Arrangements. _Arrangements_."

Zalbag examined the horizon and said nothing.

"Although I am still somewhat surprised," Dycedarg continued, "that you are taking such pains over...her. Considering who she is, and what she did. _You_, dear brother, you surprise me. I would not have thought you to be so...merciful." He said the final word as if it was not the word he truly meant.

"She did nothing knowingly," Zalbag said, and he watched the girl's hands on his saddle jerk once, convulsively. "She did nothing willingly."

"An arguable point," Dycedarg rumbled, and his chocobo snorted as it stalked along beside Zalbag's chocobo. "An arguable point, legally speaking. After all, witchcraft is a mortal sin, and how can one be ignorant of mortal sin? Does not the Church herself tell us that every newborn babe knows right from wrong?"

"You told me yesterday," Zalbag said, "that you did not believe in innate qualities."

Dycedarg waved a dismissive hand at this remark. "But the Church, dear brother! The Church says we are born with an instinct toward good and evil, just as the Church says that we must not suffer a witch." He smiled tenderly at the girl. "We burned the witch, in accordance with all righteous doctrines. I simply cannot understand why we did not burn the witch's apprentice."

And once again the wind brought him the lingering smell of smoke.

"We punish the guilty," Zalbag said. "We do not punish the ignorant or the _helpless_. Whatever this child was made to do, whatever her past history or associations, I do not consider her to be beyond redemption."

"Ah," Dycedarg said eagerly, "but those past associations are damning, are they not? For is it not written that the sins of the mother shall be visited on her children, shall be visited onto the tenth generation?"

Zalbag clicked his teeth in annoyance, as he always did when his brother began to argue the scriptures. To Zalbag's thinking, Dycedarg had an unhealthy interest in the _minutiae_ of the holy texts. Before he could respond, the girl stirred against him.

"She was not my mother," the girl said in a voice surprisingly deep. "I am not her daughter."

"Was she not?" Dycedarg asked, craning his head forward to look at her face. "What was she, then? How did you come to her?"

The white fingers fluttered on Zalbag's pommel. "She owned me. She bought me from my mother when I was four. She took me away. But she was not my mother."

"I see," Dycedarg said, and amusement creased the lines at the edge of his eyes. "Four, you say? And how old are you now?"

"Seven," the girl whispered.

"Three whole years," Dycedarg said with happy anticipation, like a man about to enjoy a candied plum. "Three whole years of grinding her powders. Three whole years of robbing corpses for her potions. Three whole years of calling forth demons and cursing cattle and consorting with the dark devils of the abyss. Three years. How long, Zalbag, will it take to make amends for those three years?"

"The rest of her life," Zalbag said wearily, "which is the same span of atonement and repentance given to all of us. I will take responsibility for her, Dycedarg. It is my decision."

"Of course," Dycedarg said immediately. "It is your command, after all. It is your assignment. I am only along to observe and advise." He smiled carelessly. "You may disregard my advice at your own discretion."

Zalbag released his breath in a slow, steady hiss. "And how is it, brother, that I drew _you_ as the preceptor for this expedition?"

Dycedarg shrugged lazily. "I am a graduate of Gariland, dear boy. I am as qualified as anyone to judge the fitness of the cadets riding the final year's circuit."

"You never have before."

"There is a first time for everything. Or do you accuse me of orchestrating my appointment?" And he smiled, showing all his teeth.

Zalbag was spared answering by an anxious cough to his left, where his lieutenant -- a young cadet named Beryl -- had ridden up beside him.

"Sir," she said in a low voice, "have you made a decision about Gregory?"

"Yes," Zalbag said in the same low voice. "Lady Rosalynne hosts a healer a day's ride south from here. We go there." He hesitated for a moment. "Will that be soon enough? How is Cadet Gregory doing?"

"Worse, I think," Beryl said. "I do not like his color. That arrow hit something vital, I think, and all our potions and poultices are little help."

Zalbag stared unseeingly at the back of his chocobo's head. "I see," he said at last, conscious that his brother was listening to them. "Thank you, cadet. Keep an eye on Cadet Gregory, please, and let me know if his condition changes."

"Yes, sir," Beryl murmured, and she allowed her chocobo to fall back several paces behind Zalbag.

Zalbag did not look back at her. He did not turn his head to see the cadets following him in faith and silence. He did not rein in his chocobo so that he could go to the very last man, the cadet bringing up the train of their company, the boy with the gray face who must be hard-pressed to stay upright on his chocobo now. Zalbag himself had cut the arrow out that morning, but he knew that such a wound needed more care than Zalbag or the other cadets could give. And so he must delay the rest of his assigned rounds, and divert his entire company of Gariland cadets, to find aid for an injured boy and shelter for a damned girl.

It was not the decision Dycedarg would have made, Zalbag knew. His lion-maned brother would have left Gregory behind, with or without someone to nurse him. Dycedarg would have burned the girl at the stake. Dycedarg would have done his duty and no more.

But Dycedarg was not the cadet-captain in charge of a company of green soldier-squires from Gariland Akademy. Zalbag bore that responsibility, and he was grimly determined to hold tight to that responsibility, as awful and bloody as it might be.

Dycedarg was humming quietly to himself, a sure sign that he was suppressing some witty suggestion. Zalbag frowned slightly at the low-lying hills that sloped past the road. It would be winter soon, and already the land was stripping itself of green, working its way down through golden leaves and brown branches to the black earth.

The girl, too, had turned to look at the landscape. Looking down, Zalbag could see her pale earlobe, her cheekbone, and the corner of one eye. She was not a pretty child, even ignoring her thinness and dirtiness, and Zalbag knew she would hold no charms for any peasant family looking for a child to mind the cows. But the Church was a tolerant mother; the Church would take her, Zalbag was sure, despite her unfortunate history.

"You know," Dycedarg said, "you'll need a name."

Zalbag raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with the one I have?"

"Not you, my dear," Dycedarg said. "The girl. The girl will need a name. Do you have a name, girl?"

The girl hunched down and said nothing.

"She'll receive a name when she is consecrated to the Church," Zalbag said. "She'll take on a new name when she takes on a new life. Why does it matter now?"

"Names are important," Dycedarg said, winding his finger into his beard. "I hate to think of anyone going about without a _name_. It would be like going about without clothes. It is all very well to say that she'll get a name later, but she needs a temporary name, a stop-gap, a placeholder. We must call her _something_."

"It doesn't matter," said Zalbag, slightly bewildered by this chain of logic. "Why would you care?"

"Haven't you ever read any of those old Archadian legends?" Dycedarg asked. "Names are crucial, my dear boy."

"Heathen texts," Zalbag said promptly.

"You are too quick, brother, to pass judgment on those texts," Dycedarg said, and for the first time that day, Zalbag heard a note of steel beneath his brother's normal tones of velvety amusement. "You are too quick to proscribe them. But even Mother Church acknowledges the importance of those old non-believers. Does she not require her high priests to be fluent in those dead tongues? Does she not host a regiment of scholars who study those same heathen texts?"

Zalbag wet his lips. "I do not know if those corrupt artifacts hold any danger to a priest truly armored within God's faith," he said. "I only know that they are dangerous, that they contain snares for the unwary, and I would not venture into them lightly. I know the evil that such deceptions might do me, but I cannot imagine the good."

"No, I suppose you can't," Dycedarg said coolly. "But even the relics of an ignorant past have some value. The Archadians may not have known our One True Faith, but they were perceptive about history, about politics, about _people_. The gods may have changed, dear brother, but people stay the same. And it is...useful to know about people."

Zalbag shrugged. Privately, he thought it better to know people by being among them, rather than by reading some ancient script by a long-dead liar, but he did not give voice to this thought. He suspected such a suggestion would not be embraced by his brother.

"Names have great power in those old stories, you know," Dycedarg said. "And naming is always a grand and serious ritual. In fact, it is not so different from our own traditions. Babies are formally named and presented to the Church as soon as decently possible, lest they die nameless and unguided in the afterlife. The Archadians had a ritual not unlike ours, you know."

Zalbag frowned at the idea of any similarity between the heathens and the Church.

"Oh, yes," Dycedarg said. "And quite frequently, in addition to bearing the parents' name, a child would also assume the name of the officiating priest, or that of a god-parent, or even a random animal passed on the way to the baptismal pools, if the portents were auspicious. The Archadians believed that names could tie you to someone or something, that such names were links, that such names held power."

"Heresy," Zalbag said, white-lipped.

"Naturally," Dycedarg said, smiling. "But...interesting. Useful. Perceptive. Far better to name a prince something regal and noble; far better to name a princess something placid and beautiful." He pointed at the girl. "Far better to name that girl something, before you bring her before Rosalynne and have to explain what exactly you are _foisting_ on our aunt."

Zalbag looked up. "You think that Rosalynne will refuse the girl?"

"I think it's likely," Dycedarg said dryly. "I think, in fact, that by taking this girl along, you have saddled yourself with a responsibility that will last all the way back to Gariland. I do not think any of our relatives are likely to foster a former witch, and I think even the Church is going to require some persuasion. But you will improve your measly chances if you give that girl a name. A name will make her seem less like a _thing_ and more like a human to Rosalynne. She is suggestible that way."

"A name..." Zalbag said, and he watched the girl's fingers twitch. She had gone rigid against his chest.

"Martha," Dycedarg said. "Lizzie. Tully. Betsy. Anything will do."

Zalbag thought of a word, and before he could stop himself, he said, "Ciborium."

"Ciborium," Dycedarg said flatly. "Ciborium? You mean, as in the sacred cup?"

Zalbag blushed. "It just came into my head." He did not confess that it was his favorite word as a child, that he had silently sang it to himself during every boyhood church service. "No, no, something else--"

"Oh, no," Dycedarg said. "Ciborium is a fine name. An unusual one, but no less illustrious for that." He leaned down to peer at the girl. "Although, perhaps a little long. For the time being, perhaps we will simply call her 'Cibby.'"

The girl's fingers drummed against the saddle in rage, but she said nothing.

Someone coughed behind him, and he looked back to find Beryl riding alongside him.

"Cadet," he nodded. "Do you think we can put off stopping until we reach the river?"

She mulled over this. "Yes," she said at last, "I think the men and the chocobos can keep this pace until then."

"And Cadet Gregory?"

"His condition is unchanged," Beryl said.

Zalbag swallowed. "Thank you, cadet. Carry on."

He did not look at Dycedarg, even though he knew that Dycedarg was looking at him. Dycedarg had his own thoughts on the matter, and may or may not have agreed that the river was the best place to rest weary men and thirsty chocobos. Dycedarg had many unspoken thoughts on Gregory, Gariland, and the girl. Dycedarg was full of advice, but he did not spill it forth, and Zalbag did not go looking for it.

This was Zalbag's command. He was responsible. He was a cadet from the esteemed and glorious Gariland Akademy; he was the captain of an important assignment. He deserved all the glory and the blame.

That morning, he had burned a witch to death. He could still smell the smoke on his skin.

He was fifteen years old.

****

2.

They reached Lady Rosalynne's estate by dusk, and the cadet, Gregory, died at dawn.

The girl Cibby moved carefully down the dark hallway. Sleeping dogs lay heaped at every corner -- the Lady Rosalynne was a great breeder of dogs -- but they did not wake as she passed them, although a few whined anxiously in their sleep. Cibby did not like dogs. They were one of the reasons that she was determined not to come under Lady Rosalynne's protection.

Not that such a thing seemed likely to happen. Lady Rosalynne herself had made that very clear from the beginning, from the very moment her nephews had ridden through her gates. She had made it clear in every uncomprehending blink by her cornflower-blue eyes and with every helpless giggle she uttered at dinner as Zalbag tried to explain the situation to her. To Lady Rosalynne, witches and the proper care of their apprentices were literally _unthinkable_. Whenever she tried to look at Cibby, her eyes slid right off, as if Cibby was not there.

Cibby kicked a dog as she went past, and the dog groused sleepily.

There was a light at the end of the hall, and Cibby headed toward it. Her plans at this point were somewhat shapeless, but she knew that she had to get _out_. Perhaps she would steal a chocobo from the stables. Perhaps she would head down the river. She had always wanted to see the sea...

She turned a corner and found Dycedarg sitting in the corridor.

The two regarded each other expressionlessly.

Dycedarg spoke first. "It's no good," he said, "going to the stables. Those birds have been bred and trained to raise holy hell if they think someone is trying to steal them. And you'll never get past the stable-hands."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cibby said.

"Of course," Dycedarg said. "The river might be good, though. Consider the river."

Cibby considered fleeing. Instead, she sat down beside Dycedarg. "Where is the other one?" she asked. "Where is Zalbag?"

Dycedarg gestured to the closed door across from them. "Saying prayers over a dying man."

"Is he dying?" Cibby asked. "Where did the healer go?"

"Gave it up as a bad job some hours ago," Dycedarg said. "That arrow that your mistress shot seems to be beyond any healing art."

Cibby said nothing. She had helped prepare the poison used on the arrowhead. She could have suggested an antidote or two, but she did not.

Dycedarg stretched restlessly. "At any rate, in the absence of Aunty's house priest, Zalbag gets to offer final rites and, I'm sure, feel very righteous and noble for doing it. Zalbag is a great fan of righteousness and ritual. It is something he has in common with our father."

"But not you?" Cibby asked, staring at the door.

"Oh, no. I much prefer to wonder what purpose a ritual _serves_," Dycedarg said. "For instance, over there, Zalbag is comforting himself and, perhaps, providing a little comfort to an insensate man. And sanctifying his soul for the afterlife," Dycedarg added as an afterthought.

"But not you," Cibby said.

"No," Dycedarg said, and he chuckled mirthlessly. "Standing vigil over the dying is not my strength. I prefer not to even think about it. It all is so much _easier_ when you don't think of it."

Cibby did not ask about what was made easy. She thought that Dycedarg might be slightly drunk. She recognized the signs from her long education in the public houses of Ivalice.

They sat there in silence for a while, both of them watching the door and thinking of those behind it.

"But that reminds me," Dycedarg said suddenly, apropos of nothing. "I meant to ask you about your past craft. It pertains, you see, to my research."

Cibby stared down at her knuckles. "What craft?" she asked. "What research?" She had not forgotten that he had wanted to burn her.

"I have been researching myths and legends," Dycedarg said, "subjects which my brother -- and many others beside him -- consider unclean and unworthy of investigation. But I beg to differ, Cibby. Those myths are fascinating, because they reveal so much about what people think and why they think it." He was silent for a moment as he ruminatively chewed his beard.

"Take, for instance," he said at last, "the rebel angels. Not a subject widely known outside the Church, or even within it, but if you consult certain obscure texts..."

He paused again. Cibby smoothed her skirt.

"Yes, the angels," he said again. "Cast out of heaven for the impudence, et cetera and so forth. Not much of a story there. But their names... It is a fact little known, even among the most scholarly of the Church, that those fallen angels share the same names as the dark gods that haunted old Archades."

Cibby raised her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Some number them twelve, and others count thirteen," Dycedarg said, "but the two groups, angels and gods, are clearly one and the same. Mighty Hashmal, bloody Shem--"

"Be quiet!" Cibby snapped. "You must not speak their names so, so _carelessly_."

"Ah," Dycedarg said mildly. "So you have heard of them."

"Never," Cibby lied. "But I know enough not to name the dark powers, whether they were angels or gods or whatever."

"They were made-up, I think," Dycedarg said. "But I find it fascinating how their name lives on. You are not the first to go white when I mentioned them, and you are not the first to pretend not to know about them. I suppose they popped up in your mistress's work."

Cibby said nothing.

"Yes," Dycedarg said. "I read quite a lot about sorcery, you know. Not because I wish to partake in those dark arts, of course, but I wish to understand it. Such things have power, you know -- not the power over souls and devils, as the Church believes, but power over hearts and minds. Making a peasant believe that his pig is cursed or that his child is a changeling? Well. It's hard work, I imagine. It's hard to make everyone believe something irrational, something irrational that serves your own purposes. Anyone who can do that," Dycedarg said languorously, "well, my hat is off to anyone who can do that."

Cibby thought longingly of the river.

"So tell me," Dycedarge said, and there was a new note in his cultured voice, "how much of your mistress's witchcraft was real? I imagine that most of it was smoke and mirrors, yes? Hidden strings and secret compartments? How much of your mistress's work was just credulous peasants, eager to believe in curses and love potions? Cibby, tell me," and here his words nearly ran together with impatience, "tell me about love potions. Are they just sugar and water? They are, aren't they? God," he said raggedly, "God, what a stupid idea. As if anyone could bottle love."

He pressed one hand over his eyes, and in the silence that followed, Cibby thought about her answer. There were several thing she could have told him, but in the end, she went with the easiest.

"You're right," she said. "It is all pretend; it is all fake. There are no gods or demons, and love potions only soothe nervous stomachs. But people want to believe things. My mistress's art was nothing but a sham. She persuaded people that she could do things, and they believed her, and because they believed, such things were done, one way or another. A love potion does nothing, but people...some people do things because such things are expected, even if those expectations are unspoken." She shrugged. "If you expect someone to love you after a potion, well...sometimes the expectation alone is enough."

Dycedarg laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh -- too low, too stuttering, too dog-like -- and it startled Cibby. She had not believed that Dycedarg could make such a human sound. For a moment, she forgot that he had wanted to burn her that morning.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, yes, yes." He lowered his hand. "I know that now. There are no devils, no, nor no gods either. There are no love potions, no matter how much I wanted to believe..." He shuddered. "I wanted to believe that it wasn't my fault. I wanted to believe that someone else was responsible, that she, that _slut_, had done something to me. I wanted to believe that. It was impossible that I could be base, so corrupt, so low. What kind of man falls in love with another man's wife? Especially when that wife is a slattern? Especially when that man is--"

He stopped there and panted heavily for a moment. "No," he said at last, "no, clearly. Only peasants would believe that love was subject to angels and demons and the phases of the moon; only peasants would believe in _love_. We have our lustful passions and domestic alliances, and we confuse these struggles for power as something sweet and holy. No," he said. "No, no, clearly."

Dycedarg ran his fingers through his tousled hair. "Well," he said in a weak imitation of his former composure, "you see, I study the ways that people persuade themselves, and I have had ample time to study myself. I will be harder in the future, you know. I will be made out of iron, one day. I will not be suggestible; I will not be susceptible."

Cibby, who had barely blinked during his long rambling outburst, nodded mutely.

"And I will be useful, one day," Dycedarg said, turning away slightly. "I thought I would be useful during this mission, but no. I have let my brother blunder into problem after problem, and have I lifted one finger to help him? No, I have not. I thought I could...help him..." he said tiredly. "But no, no, clearly."

They sat in silence, and then Dycedarg said, in an entirely new tone of voice, "Seven, Cibby? Did you say you were only seven years old?"

Cibby felt a flare of panic. "Seven, yes. I am seven."

"Hmm," Dycedarg said, and his eyes had gone cold and sober. "You talk uncommonly well for a seven-year-old. Most eloquent, for a seven-year-old."

Cibby stared down at her knuckles. She _looked_ seven, she knew, or near enough to seven. Nobody could prove that she was _not_ seven, or prove that she might have spent more than three years as Mistress Bella's apprentice. No one could condemn a seven-year-old to death (ignoring, for the moment, Dycedarg's own efforts), but for an older child, a child who was nearly a woman proper...

"Thank you, sir," Cibby whispered. "My mistress always wanted me to talk right proper."

"I see," Dycedarg said, but before he could add anything, the door across from them opened to reveal Zalbag. He looked rumpled and ragged, and there were dark shadows under his eyes.

"Cibby," he said, blinking his eyes in surprise, "are you still awake?"

Cibby came to her feet in a hurry. "Sir, yes, sir."

Zalbag glanced at Dycedarg, and he wore the slightest expression of contempt before he returned his gaze to Cibby. "Come," he said suddenly. "Come here, and help me watch over Gregory."

Cibby was not overly fond of corpses, but she was even less fond of laughing knaves beginning to sober up and regret their intemperate confessions to her. "Yes, sir," she said, and she nearly skipped to the door.

Zalbag closed the door behind her, and her last glimpse of Dycedarg revealed the man waving one finger sardonically at her. Then the door closed, and Zalbag sighed.

"Dycedarg is..." he said. "Well, I hope he did not say anything to upset you, Cibby. Death upsets him, I think. It reminds him of our mother and her passing, I think."

Cibby nodded and tried to look like a seven-year-old looks when adults confide things far beyond her seven-year-old ken.

"Come," he said again. "Come, and help me."

Cibby had seen the dead and the dying before. She had helped Mistress Bella lay out bodies for funerals; she had helped Mistress Bella treat the sick and injured. She had helped Mistress Bella unearth corpses for her potions. Death held no particular wonder for Cibby.

As a result, she barely looked at Gregory, who was still breathing, but only barely. Instead, she looked at Zalbag, and she was startled to see his expression of radiant expectancy, an expression that Cibby had only previously seen in the faces of women in their ninth month of pregnancy.

"Look, Cibby," he said. "Look. It has been a long and awful road, but we are nearly at its end."

"You were trying to save him," Cibby said.

"Yes," he said, "but it was not meant to be. Heaven has recalled him a little sooner than anyone expected. God is reaching forth to hold fast to this blessed man. Can you feel it, Cibby? Can you sense that holy presence?"

Cibby could sense nothing but the hoarse rasp of Gregory's breath and the sickly odor of some herbal concoction.

"I thought you should be here," Zalbag said. "I am glad you were awake. I wanted you to be here, for this." He took her hand gently.

"He is dying," Cibby said, and her voice sounded flat and far away to her

"Everyone dies. It is the price we pay for living," Zalbag said. "But it need not be a meaningless death, no more than it need be a meaningless life. Cibby," he said suddenly, "do you renounce witchcraft and devils and evil?" His grip on her hand tightened painfully.

Cibby's breath caught in her throat, and for a moment both she and Gregory rattled in the same key. She stared into Zalbag's hard young face, and she remembered the smell of smoke.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I do."

His hold on her hand did not relax. "And do you embrace the teachings of St. Ajora and the church? Do you promise to be led and guided by that light?"

Cibby hesitated. It was easy to renounce evil -- she could not recall doing anything _truly_ evil, even under Mistress Bella's tutelage -- but it was harder to unconditionally embrace some unknown creed with unknown rules.

"What _does_ St. Ajora teach?" she asked timidly.

There was a moment of terrifying silence before Zalbag broke into a smile. "Good," he said, letting go of her. "Good. That is the first question, the first for everyone, but I cannot answer it. For that, we must find a priest. But are you willing to learn the answer? Are you willing to study the holy testimonies? If I should find you a home -- a home in the Church -- are you willing to embrace it?"

"I am willing to learn," Cibby said, relieved to hear that her future no longer held the possibility of Rosalynne. "I am willing to study."

"Very well," Zalbag said. "Then come, little sister, and let us pray for Gregory." He stroked her hair once, affectionately, and Cibby felt the warmth of his hand like the warmth of the sun.

They stood at the edge of bed as Gregory breathed once, twice, and then not at all.

"He was a good soldier," Zalbag said quietly, "and it is my fault that he is dead. He was to be married in the spring, and now I must tell his betrothed that he is dead." He bent down to kiss Gregory's forehead, and when he stood back up, Cibby saw that he was crying. He did not sob loudly or messily, as many men did; instead, his tears ran down a serene face, like raindrops slipping down a marble statue's head. "He was a good man," he said again, "and I will remember him."

And for the first time in her life, Cibby felt a little seed of doubt in her heart. She believed in St. Ajora -- just as she believed in rebellious Hashmal, and sugar fairies, and mushroom circles, and all the strange things that flitted just beyond eyesight -- but she had never before believed in the Church. It had always seemed musty and oppressive, an institution designed to crush smaller things, an organization completely remote to her own interests. But for the first time in her life, Cibby watched a man weep happily over his dead subordinate, and she wondered about the institution that could cause such a thing. Perhaps the Church was less absolute than Zalbag believed, but it was clearly persuasive, and it held power over hearts and minds.

Zalbag pulled a knife from his belt and carefully cut a little bit of hair from Gregory's head. "A memento," he said, "for his betrothed. It helps to have _something_, when the person you love dies a long way away. It helps to have something to touch." He put his knife away. "Come, little sister. It is time for us to rest."

He smiled down at her with love and tenderness, and Cibby smiled back.

The sun was just rising as the messenger reached Lady Rosalynne's estate, and the message itself did not reach Zalbag until he was towing both his brother and Cibby back to their beds. All three of them stopped in the hallway as Zalbag took the message and cracked open its seal.

"Well," Dycedarg said, "what is it? Is it from Gariland?"

"No," Zalbag said, scanning the letter.

Dycedarg cast a peevish glance at the messenger, who stood without expression as Zalbag read. "Well? What is it?"

At last, Zalbag looked up, and his mouth was white. "Dycedarg," he said, "our stepmother is dead."

****

3.

They set out before breakfast, and they rode for the rest of the day as if all the bats of hell were behind them. Every time they had to stop (to rest a panting chocobo, to retrieve a dropped satchel, to ford a high river), Dycedarg spent the brief respite marching up and down, muttering bitterly under his breath against the delay.

Zalbag watched his brother carefully, especially around the river.

He had put Cibby behind him for today, and she rode with her arms laced around his waist. The company thundered across the countryside, bouncing over uneven hills and dry creek-beds.

They reached the Beoulve estate at twilight. The manor's courtyard was bright with mourning candles, and Zalbag was involuntarily reminded of the last time the candles had been lit.

Now another mother had died.

Zalbag slid down from his chocobo and reached up to help Cibby swing off. Dycedarg came behind them and nearly vaulted from his mount. He lunged in the direction of the porter, who had opened the gates.

"Tell us," Dycedarg panted. "Tell us."

"Lord Dycedarg?" the porter said timidly.

"Is she dead?" Dycedarg demanded. "Tell us!"

"Oh, the Lady Beoulve? Oh, yes, master. Terribly sad, what with the baby and all. She passed away two days ago. There was nothing we could do, master."

Dycedarg made a sound, deep in his chest, and leaned against the gate post.

Zalbag turned away and began making the complicated sleeping arrangements that an unexpected company of cadets and chocobos always required. By the time he was done and able to return to Dycedarg, his brother had regained his composure and the porter had disappeared.

"Quite a lot of candles, isn't it?" Dycedarg said, surveying the courtyard. "Such a _multitude_ of mourners, eh?"

"I believe the number is always the same," Zalbag said neutrally. "The chamberlain keeps a set in storage and brings it out for any death."

The chamberlain himself was approaching them. "Lord Dycedarg," he intoned. "Lord Zalbag. I did not expect you quite so soon."

"The Akademy sent us your message," Zalbag said. "We received it with great sadness. I am glad to see that you have performed the proper mourning rituals in the absence of our father."

"Yes," the chamberlain said. "I sent a messenger to Lord Balbanes, but who can say when it will reach him? And it is a sad news indeed for a soldier to receive on the battlefield." He nodded to the two brothers. "Sad news for anyone to receive."

Dycedarg laughed, and it was an ugly laugh. "Sadder news for some than others, I suppose. I imagine that there was a certain amount of rejoicing among the kitchen drudges. After all, where one has gone before, why not two?"

The chamberlain blinked impassively at this. "You will be tired, gentlemen," he said at last, "but your rooms will be ready soon."

"Yes, yes, our rooms," Dycedarg said. "But what about the body?"

"Body? What body?" the chamberlain asked. "Do you speak of Lady Beoulve?"

"Yes, yes," Dycedarg said. "Where is she?"

The chamberlain was silent for a long moment. "Lady Beoulve," he started carefully, "in accordance with her final request, was burned atop a funeral pyre, and her ashes were scattered over the fields."

Dycedarg exhaled audibly. "You _burned_ her to ashes?"

"Lady Beoulve herself requested it," the chamberlain said. "It is a foreign custom, I believe, that she had read about. She herself desired it."

"You burned her to ashes," Dycedarg said again, and Zalbag flinched. He touched his chest, where a locket of hair hung in safe-keeping beneath his tunic, and he remembered telling Cibby, _It helps to have something to touch_.

He looked down and found Cibby standing beside him, watching both Beoulve brothers with wide eyes. He smiled wanly at her. She did not smile back.

"Yes, sir," the chamberlain said stoically. "It was her wish."

"And the baby?" Dycedarg asked wearily. "Did you burn the baby too?"

"The baby?" the chamberlain asked in surprise. "Oh, no. The baby lived. Didn't you know, sir?"

"It lived?" Dycedarg whispered.

"Oh, yes, indeed. And a fine, healthy lass she is, too. She's up in the old nursery, sir."

Dycedarg nodded and began walking rapidly forward. "Yes, yes, the nursery, of course, naturally." His trot lengthened into a sprint.

Zalbag abandoned the startled chamberlain without a word and ran after his brother, and Cibby ran after him. The three of them ran through the main door, down the Great Hall, up the central stairs, down the left passageway, through the second hall. But Dycedarg had a head start, and he vanished up the tower stairwell before Zalbag had taken the first step.

Zalbag did not know what fear propelled him forward, but he did not question it. He took the stairs two at a time and nearly threw himself through the nursery door.

Dycedarg stood in the corner, holding a bundle of white lace in his arms. "Shush, Zalbag," he said without looking up. "You'll wake her."

"'sright," said another voice near his knee. "Bah-bees need quiet, Thalbig."

"Hello, Ramza," Zalbag said, breathing a little heavily and watching Dycedarg warily.

"Hello," said the little boy, peering up at him. "Didja hear? My mummy ith gone away."

"Yes," Zalbag said. "I am sorry."

"Yes," Ramza said solemnly. "Mummy be going away, and I have to watch the bah-bee." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I ith watching her _now_."

A door at the other end of room opened, and an apple-cheeked woman poked in her head.

"Why, Lord Zalbag! And Lord Dycedarg! I didn't expect you two back so soon. Such a sad day, my ducks. Are you looking at your little sister, Lord Dycedarg?" the woman asked eagerly. "Isn't she a beauty?"

"She looks rather potato-like," Dycedarg said.

"Never!" cried the woman, whom Zalbag dimly remembered as the woman who had nursed both himself and his brother more than a decade ago. "She is a pearl."

"She looks nothing like a pearl," Dycedarg said, smiling. "Have you decided on her name-day? May I nominate the name 'Potato Baby?' Because I think it speaks to something deep and true about her."

"Oh," Nurse fluttered uneasily, "well, sir, that is to say, we already had the naming day. Yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Well, we didn't think anyone was going to show up, and we didn't know how the poor thing would take without her mother, so we thought it best to name her as soon as possible."

"I see," Dycedarg said icily. "And what name have you chosen for our sister, might I ask?"

"Altima," Nurse said. "We named her 'Altima.' Isn't that a right pretty name?"

Beside him, Zalbag felt Cibby stiffen, and a curious expression moved across Dycedarg's face and disappeared.

"Altima," he said slowly. "Why Altima?"

"It was pretty," Nurse said dreamily. "And it is a real old-fashioned name. I think there may have been a saint named that. St. Altima?"

"St. Altima," Dycedarg repeated. "I see."

Cibby shifted beside him, and Zalbag abruptly remembered his responsibilities. "Nurse," he said, "I was wondering, if you would be so kind as to find a place for this girl to sleep tonight?"

Nurse looked at Cibby, and her eyes widened. "Why..." she faltered, "why, of course. I know just the place for her. Leave it to me, Lord Zalbag."

It may have been Zalbag's imagination, but he thought Cibby shot him a dark look as she was led from the room.

Dycedarg frowned down at the bundle in his arms. "Altima," he said again, curiously.

"An odd name," Zalbag said. "And there is no saint named Altima."

"No, not a saint," Dycedarg agreed. "Isn't it funny? How certain names...persist?" He leaned down to put the baby back into its cradle. Ramza stood beside him, peering into the cradle, and Dycedarg impersonally toed him in the shins. "Here, bastard," he said, "move over."

Ramza shuffled over wordlessly, and Zalbag stepped beside him, so that all three Beoulve brothers stood around the cradle, like three fairy godmothers peering down at their potato-like charge.

"Altima," Dycedarg said, rolling the word around on his tongue.

"Al-ah-maa," Ramza said, less successfully. "Allll-ma."

"Alma," Zalbag said.

"Better," Dycedarg said. "A better name for our little sister. Don't you agree, Alma?"

The potato opened her eyes briefly and then went back to sleep.

"One day," said the first godmother, "she will be a fine lady, a rival to princesses, a power in her own right."

"One day," said the second godmother, "she will be a testament to God, a cornerstone of the church, a woman who walks in grace."

"I watch her," said the third godmother. "I ith watching her."

Dycedarg reached down and tenderly stroked the single dark curl on the potato's head.

****

4.

Cibby did not go far when she was ordered from the baby's room. They had only made it as far as the neighboring room, which had a little cot and washstand for the nurse, before the nurse released Cibby's hand and dropped to the floor.

"Oh, _Mistress_," the Nurse trilled.

"All right, all right," Cibby said. "Please get up. And I'm not a mistress. Not yet."

"Such an _honor_," the Nurse cooed. "I saw you and your Mistress Bella at the exorcism, last fall, the one in Jimmy Apple's barn? I can't believe that I actually had the chance to _touch_ you."

"Ah," Cibby said wearily, "of course. You're part of a...coven around here, I suppose."

"Oh, yes," the Nurse said. "I mean, it's just a small one yet, but we're coming along. But...well, my dear, if you could find it in your heart to come to our next meeting, it would wonderful, and I was planning to make strawberry turnovers, so--"

"No, no," Cibby said, "I'm afraid that would be impossible. I am _very_ busy. But I wanted to ask you something about that...baby."

"Oh, did you notice it?" asked the Nurse, who was climbing (with difficulty) to her feet. "What a nice thing to say! I wasn't even sure that I had done it correctly, but if you can _sense_ it, then--"

"You consecrated her to Ultima, Queen of the Burning Ones," Cibby said bluntly. "Why?"

"Why?" the Nurse asked in faint bewilderment. "Why...why, because it seemed like the thing to do. Someone in the group suggested it...I can't remember who...but we all agreed, because we all thought it would be a _magnificent_ gesture. Something really big, you know?"

"You've opened a door," Cibby said. "What will you do if something comes through?"

"Honor it," the Nurse said, "and remind it about who opened that door. And reap the benefits of its bounty."

Cibby sighed. There was a light burning in the Nurse's eye, a light Cibby had seen in other witches -- not to mention priests, lords, and ditch-diggers -- a light that signaled an inner fanaticism that would not suffer any contradiction or moderation.

"What kind of blood did you use?" Cibby asked.

"Why, it was pig's blood," the Nurse said. "We'd had a roast that night, you see, and so I snuck a little something from the kitchens."

"I see," Cibby said, thinking back to the strange snarl of auras that had flickered above the lump in Dycedarg's arms. These geniuses had used pig's blood to seal a baby to one of the Elder Ones, using (no doubt) a jumble of misunderstood incantations. These geniuses would be lucky not to be devoured alive in their beds by some unspeakable horror in a year or two.

"My dear," the Nurse said, and Cibby was startled by the note of tenderness in her voice. "My dear, I have heard the bad news. Your poor mistress suffered her final judgment, I understand. What a terrible thing for her, and what a terrible thing for you to watch."

Cibbly blinked. As a matter of a fact, Cibby had hated her mistress for many reasons (the beatings, the starvings, the hot pins), and when she had seen the flames rise up around those long-toenailed feet, Cibby had exulted in her soul. She did not say this to the Nurse. Instead, she hung her head dolefully and said, "Yes. So...so very terrible."

"How ever did you escape, my dear?"

"Lord Zalbag," Cibby said. "Lord Zalbag intervened."

"Ah, Zalbag. Isn't he a duck? I mean, of course," the Nurse said hastily, "he is a fool and an unbeliever, and one day we will cast him into the pit and dedicate his soul to the dark abyss, but still. Such a sweetheart."

"Yes," said Cibby, who suspected the Nurse's coven had assembled both their credo and spellbook from secondhand sources. "Certainly."

"And, my dear, I was wondering..." The Nurse hesitated. "I was wondering if...perhaps...I might hear your name."

"My name?" Cibby asked, her lip curling. "You ask for my true name, and all the power that such would give you over me?"

"No, no," the Nurse said frantically. "Just your public name, dear. A small thing, just so that I might hear it."

The girl was silent for some time. She had not given her public name to Zalbag or Dycedarg; she had locked her public name deep inside, along with her private names. But common courtesy, from witch to witch (regardless of whether or not one of those witches was an incompetent pretender) demanded the public name. Besides, she had labored under "Cibby" for long enough; she could feel herself changing into something childish and lisping, and she wanted to stop that.

"My name," the girl said, "is Balmafula."

"Ah," the Nurse sighed rapturously. "Such a lovely name. Thank you, my dear."

Then the Nurse told Balmafula her own public name, which Balmafula promptly forgot, and several boring details about her own life and her own ridiculous attempts to tempt demons into making an appearance within her summoning circle.

(Honey, Balmafula knew, was the secret. Demons would do a great deal for honey.)

"I'm sorry," Balmafula said, interrupting the Nurse after a decent interval of nattering. "I'm sorry, but you know, I must beg a favor of you."

"Oh, Balmafula," the Nurse said. "Anything."

"Lord Zalbag," Balmafula said slowly, "is planning to make me a ward of the Church." Eventually. After he had passed her among his charitable relations. And then she would be nothing but a barefooted penitent, helpless and beseeching...

"No!" cried the Nurse.

"It would be a grim fate," Balmafula said. "And so I need you to help me escape it. Could you have a chocobo, saddled, waiting for me at the south exit by midnight?"

"Um, yes," the Nurse said, "certainly. Midnight? Yes, of course. Yes! I must start immediately. Oh, my dear!" And with that, she rushed from the room.

Balmafula listened to her feet recede down the hall, and then she went into the other room, the baby's room.

At first she thought the room was empty, but then she saw the lacy lump of baby in the cradle, and the golden-haired boy glaring at her across the top of the cradle.

"Hello," she said. "Ramza, right?"

"I ith watching," he said.

"Yes," Balmafula said, "and a very good job you're doing, too."

"Thank you," the boy said gruffly.

Balmafula padded over to the side of the cradle and peered in. The baby looked like all babies -- flushed and wrinkled and vaguely angry -- but she also shimmered slightly if Balmafula looked at her from the corner of her eyes.

"It's a strong curse," Balmafula told the boy, "but it's messy. It can be fixed, I think. I hope."

She reached into a pocket and found a sewing needle, which she calmly pressed into the pad of her right thumb. A bead of blood swelled up, and she pressed this bead against the baby's warm forehead.

Ramza watched her curiously.

"You bear a lot of curses, baby girl," Balmafula said, "and more than a few blessings. But hopefully this will...calm them a bit. Here," she said to the boy, "give me your hand."

Ramza obediently offered one fat hand, which Balmafula took with her left hand, keeping her right hand lightly against the baby's skin.

"It's a a lot of things to carry, which is why you," Balmafula said to Ramza, "gotta help her. Can you help her? Help her carry all of it?"

"Yeth."

Balmafula released his hand and pulled back her thumb. She squinted down at the girl. "Good enough? I think? I don't know how all those things are going to settle in you, baby girl. I guess it'll be interesting." She smiled.

Alma yawned and went back to sleep.

Balmafula stretched wearily. She longed for ten hours of sleep, but she could not spare a second for rest.

"Good-bye, Ramza. I don't expect that I will ever see you or your brothers again."

"Good-bye," Ramza said sweetly, pressing his chin against the edge of the cradle.

With a certain amount of difficulty, Balmafula found the south exit, and the Nurse, and the saddled chocobo. With further difficulty, and after many promises to (one day) return and teach the Nurse every arcane secret that Balmafula knew, Balmafula managed to get astride the chocobo and get it walking forward.

She had never managed a chocobo before, but two days of watching Zalbag had taught her a thing or two, and Balmafula was a quick study. She moved her knees slightly, and the chocobo increased his pace.

"Take care, dear!" the Nurse cried.

"Blessings upon your house," Balmafula called back. "Blessings upon the Beoulves."

And then she spurred the chocobo into a gallop. The wind rushed past her, lifting up her hair and sleeves, and Balmafula laughed with pleasure.

The Nurse had given her the names of several surrounding covens, should Balmafula decide to take up her old trade, but Balmafula had no such intentions.

Instead, she was on her way to the Church. Not as Zalbag had intended that she come, not barefoot and begging, but from a position of power. She had a grand store of knowledge and power within her, and there were people within the Church who would value that. With them, she would bargain.

The Church, she thought. There was something interesting there. Something fine and miserable, something fanatical and merciful. Priesthood was not, perhaps, all that different from witchcraft. And she had liked Zalbag's sense of conviction, even if she remained indifferent to the source of that conviction. _The Church_, she hummed to herself. _The church the church the church._

And if it did not work out, she could leave the Church, she thought. It could be left. It was not like a family; it was not forever.


End file.
